Elevations, Expectations and Etiquettes.

Since I started this blog, I seem to have grown up. No great surprise there I imagine you're thinking. However I mean ageing not in years but in maturity.

Mature.

I've always hated that word. It  can describe someone sensible and responsible, but at the same time I cant quite rid myself of the image of old, malodourous cheese...

But I digress.

7 days 7 dresses

Hello bloggies!


I stumbled across a fabulous competition through a great blog- FashionChampagne- thats teamed up with one of my favourite shops, New Look offering a grand prize reward of 7 of their dresses, and so how could I not enter!

The idea is to choose 7 dresses from the New Look site, one to wear each day of the week!

Details can be found here, so go ahead and enter!

enjoy :)

too high for heels?

Yes, I am still alive. Just thought I’d point that out. No car accidents or freak natural disasters in England. I have no excuse for not writing for so long…there have been numerous times when I’ve just had pen and paper for company, but nothing seemed to want to be said. Blame good old Writers Block. For 5 months… L

Anyway, I'm back!

oh, hey there, christmas!

I'm in my room writing an essay, poking people on facebook, texting at the same time, all the normal shenanigans one gets up to on a Saturday morning. And then Michael Bubles “Blue Christmas” starts playing on the radio.

I turn toward the sound, a look of shocking realisation steadily etching its way across my face. It’s here. Christmas has come.

a is for...

This post is a little different from the bog standard ranting and raving I normally do- I decided to do my own personal list of stuff starting with all the letters of the alphabet! 

Its all pretty much because of this wonderful gentleman and this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVB9Vvdn7Ro

All the things on this list have some importance to me, some good, some…not so good, but important nonetheless!
Some were rather difficult to think up things for though...

thats a first!

As some readers of these ramblings may know, I love music. Jazz, music hall, swing, real old school stuff mostly, but I love pretty much any kind of tune. I've made a long suffering woman out of my old flute teacher, with unlearned scales and improvised melodies in exams, and my new piano teacher looks like shes going the same way too, but Ive never had a singing lesson. It always was the one instrument I've wanted to be able to play and play well, but something’s always held me back.

the great book debate- featuring mr wodehouse

I don’t know about you, but I have always had an unhealthy fascination with books. There are some people in this world that I know of who could, if all the books that have ever been written were destroyed, simply move on with life. But there are also some who can’t.

Since birth I was surrounded by paperbacks, novels and picture- books and it does relate to the nature vs. nurture debate- do I read because I choose to do so of my own free will, or has the smell of freshly turned pages and newly printed ink on paper been forever etched onto my skin from the beginning by my parents- or specifically my father, and his frank infatuation with the classics?

a canadian affair

Well, I must start this post with an apology- Ive been in one of the most amazing places EVER for the past 3 weeks- Canada! Had such a relaxing time and met some lovely people there- will definitely be making a return visit!

Along with some highly embarrassing and disturbing events which occurred in the land of maple syrup, I did manage to pick up a thought from a Canadian newspaper. Usually when I take in the daily news stories from the broadsheet, I tend to just skim read my horoscope for a lark- I don’t believe a word of it. Ever since the stars told me I was going to find myself amongst substantial wealth about 2 years ago Ive given up with them. Maybe The Fates have are waiting for the best exchange rate for my owed money, but until I land in a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow I wont be seriously digesting the horoscopes.

However there was, in this specific one, quite an enterprising thought and a rather adhesive notion that seems to have taken root in my mind and refuses to be unstuck until I have thunk it over and taken it on board somehow. This particular prediction seemed,at the time I read it, to really mean something and it was not a hard task to relate it to my own personal situation.

Let me explain.

because that wasnt awkward at all...

*

“So got anything else planned for today?”

J- “No…Just this”

“Quiet day huh?”

J- “Mmmm…”

“Hmmmmmm…”

Not the most enthralling snippet of conversation I’ll admit, but one that happens every 6 months with me, as I am having my hair doused in a few degrees too hot water, rinsing strange unheard of product out of my hair. Yes, today, I crossed the border and entered the unknown land of scissors, shampoos and squeaky floors, otherwise known as The Hairdressers.

too good to be true

You know, there are times in life when everything is sorting itself out without contribution from the subject on whom certain incidents and entanglements occur. It’s the night before the dawn, or words to that effect, which people so often talk about. At  times, it seems that without doing anything, you get everything! Or, at least a lot more than you bargained for.  Friends of mine are getting auditions, creativity has struck me like lightening, (see here!) and I found £2.50 down the back of the sofa.

to be a bird in france

Heyy,

 Sorry about the delay, I have been in the land of croissants and frogs legs (France) on holiday! And while driving there, I wrote this in the backseat of the car.

Watching the raindrops race each other down the window, I catch sight of a swallow flying alongside, dipping and soaring like the notes of the scale, carefree and unobtrusive, to the sounds of cogs turning the possibilities of my imagination.

the charity shop challenge!

As a teenager, it's a given fact that I am constantly broke, therefore on Saturday I completed The Charity Shop Challenge. I learned many things from this experience and parted with no more than £14.99 - much less than I would have spent buying the same clothes with New Look, Peacocks or even Primark on the horizon of my spending limit.

My task was simply this- to take fifteen of my precious pounds out to town and buy a completely Charity Shop fuelled outfit. I started out with a trek to Cancer Research UK, where I sifted my way through the hand me downs, matted cardigans and trilby hats only to find...absolutely nothing. A good hour I spent making sure I had found and analysed each piece of clothing- whatever size- in the hope of being able to take it in if need be, or Gok-ify it to create what I was looking for. But all in vain. I left the shop to the watchful gaze of the Sales Assistant, unbelief in her mature eyes at the youth who had pottered her way around the clothes rails.

So. Onto shop number two. In which our heroine actually makes a purchase!

the most ingeniuos idea for a blog post ever written

Today I settled myself down before the keyboard, with the intention of typing up an exquisitely frank, honest and open post, full of heart felt words and phrases which would tell, with all the utmost truth, the hardships and endeavours that I, J, go through on a regular basis.

But today, I stumbled upon the most catastrophic and sly of The Writers most mortal enemies.

finding the right words

Sometimes I wonder about myself. Sometimes I think that age-old virtue of Common Sense has been omitted from my being since birth- maybe a cause for wonder and speculation at how abysmally this new life form will cope without the one mental presence the entire human race claims to be universal.

My cause for concern is backed up with evidence of the blondest kind. For example:

storytime

Today I was told a story.

A story I can’t seem to get out of my head for various reasons. A simple story, but effective nonetheless. It goes like this:

too old too young?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2000871/Sarah-Burge-Human-Barbie-gives-daughter-boob-job-voucher-7th-birthday.html

I dont really know what to say.

Well, actually, Dee Bennett from London wrote about the above article, and her comments what got me thinking this time:

"The saddest thing is the lack of expression in the child's eyes and face, as though she has cut off all emotion. Her childhood seems to be destroyed."

Have we really got to this? My father, in moments

the formality of the english language

Im one of those peopple who often discovers something theyre not necessarily looking for, and this post was no exception. The grand idea for this came from a simple stumbled upon book review, soo I'm starting this with a quote from said review. It's from an American about a British book:

"There is something about the way the British write that I find fascinating. Maybe it’s the "formality" of their language? I don’t exactly know." *

 

I'm not sure I know either.
 
I don’t know about you, but, being English, I don’t really think about English customs, the way of life, and the way we speak or write. And probably it’s the same for others; people maybe don’t look deeply at their own culture because they’re surrounded by it. So to hear a view of British language from a non- Brit interested me. Thinking and actually dissecting my own culture was something I'd never done before I read the review. Until now.

the bane of my (and many others) life

1 more. That's what I’ve been waiting to say for these past few weeks. 1 more.

1 MORE EXAM LEFT!!!

If you hadn’t guessed, its exam time for me here in England, and I, along with thousands of others are going through the excruciating pain of thinking you’ve revised everything, only to find, when opening the paper, you feel like you don't know enough.

a rant about shyness and being an lonely child

Loneliness.



We've all experienced it one time or another, and as I sit here in the library in the middle of lunch break, I'm starting to feel this is my territory. No one knows I'm here. Not even the Librarian, who sees all, hasn't an inkling there is another living presence in the room.  But I like that. And Im used to it.

Fire

Yesterday afternoon, just before 1pm, the local forest caught fire, and even though its on the other side of the small village I live in, the smoke was billowing across the sky and we couldnt see to the end of the street. The street at the end of my road has been closed off by the police and the atmosphere when you go outside is so thick it hurts your eyes. And I wont start on the smell. Praying the 150 firemen and women can stop the flames- its a little frightening really, just how close it is.

there is a fire engine here, just covered up so much by the smoke

More than 24 hours later and its still going.


  Jx

Wills & Kate

So, todays the day!
Personally, i loved the wedding- public holiday, reason for a get together and to show creative baking skills! 


As did everyone here in England, I decided to do something English-y and decided to make cakes! Im not a masterchef, but I thought these werent bad! How did you celebrate? Anything wacky?
<><><><><> 

patriotic cupcakes!

my frankly, incredible icing skills here

At least Harrys still available...

  Jx

An Easter Walk

 

Hullo!

so my first post happens to be on easter day, so I decided to go out for a stroll along a nearby pond, after eating too much chocolate, and I saw this little duck trying to get some shut eye underneath a tree all on her own!

  Jx